The growth of wireless traffic has been significant in the last decade. Studies predict that the tremendous worldwide growth in the market size of mobile broadband services will continue. For example, certain predictions estimate that the mobile broadband market may grow from one billion users in 2012 to as many as eight billion users by 2015. In addition, global mobile data more than doubled for the fourth year in a row in 2011, and it may continue to do so through 2016. Thus, additional spectrum may be beneficial and necessary to accommodate increased mobile broadband use.
Spectrum use may be based on exclusive utilization of dedicated bands. Additional spectrum for mobile broadband has been created by re-farming or repurposing of spectrum, for example, by moving incumbents to other bands. Examples of this include the 2.5 GigaHertz (GHz) band in many parts of the world, and more recently with clearing of parts of the ultra-high frequency (UHF) band due to the digital switchover, known as Digital Dividend.
The practice of repurposing has become more difficult and less feasible due to difficulties of finding incumbent services that may be moved to other bands. In particular, repurposing of bands where existing services are widely in use may be an extremely costly and lengthy undertaking, as confirmed by a recent National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) report that concluded that potential repurposing of the 1755-1850 MegaHertz (MHz) band would take ten years and cost around eighteen billion dollars. As a result, regulators are considering methods other than repurposing to obtain the new spectrum that will solve the bandwidth crunch.